Santa Claus, the Pumpkin
Image credit: Ruhi B. for The Khranicle
She sat meditating on the rocky ground, feeling the energy in the world around her. People walked by and She studied the energy in people’s bodies, their souls. She sat there for hours, days, years watching people pass by her, hearing their energies, souls, getting released to the world, and learning how to build them.
Then one day, She manipulated the energy in the air, creating her own soul, one unique from those of the humans. She placed it in the object closest to her.
A white pumpkin.
The pumpkin slowly reproduced, forming more and more pumpkins. In the beginning, it was able to control each one of its reproductions as if the reproduction was itself. The pumpkin made its reproductions perform rolls, jumping jacks, push ups, and even a choreographed pumpkin dance!
However, over time, the pumpkin began losing control. It could no longer move as freely. Each movement used up all its energy.
Meditating on the ground, She observed the pumpkin’s energy—-its soul—-getting split between each of its reproductions. The original pumpkin had barely any energy left.
The pumpkin was put in a cart along with its friends. It waited for hours, days before someone picked it up.
No! the pumpkin thought. It didn’t want to be taken. It used all its energy to move, drop out of the person's hands.
It felt the person pick it up again. It desperately tried to move and that's when it felt a flow of energy. It jerked back into the cart.
The pumpkin felt so much more powerful now. It could do jumping jacks again. It wondered what had happened.
It turned to its pumpkin friends, but immediately noticed something wrong. The usual glow from them was gone.
Hey guys?
There was no response.
The pumpkin was confused. It reached out with its energy to the pumpkins around it.
Nothing.
The energy from the pumpkins was gone.
Why do I have more energy and they don’t have any?
It realized what had happened. The other pumpkins had allowed it to borrow their energy.
They’re inanimate objects now.
The pumpkin started to cry, before attempting to send the energy back to its friends. It found that it could send its energy between pumpkins and inhabit them.
The pumpkin was mad at the humans. It turned its face into an evil smile with triangular eyes, and it switched between different pumpkins, surprising the humans and scaring them away. The humans feared pumpkins for several years.
One day, the pumpkin saw someone grab one of its friends. A metal-like object slid against its friend’s skin.
The pumpkin inhabited its friend to see what was wrong. It felt its skin being slashed and pulled out into two empty triangles and a mouth.
The pumpkin jumped back to inhabit a different pumpkin, shuddering at the feeling of the knife.
That’s when the pumpkin saw that the triangles and the mouth on the cut pumpkin looked just like the ones on itself. The person had cut an evil smiley face on the pumpkin.
The pumpkin’s evil smiley face had saved the pumpkins from the humans for years, but now the humans had started to take pumpkins again. Ironically, this time, they carved an evil smile into the faces of the pumpkins they took.
Over the years, the pumpkin tried different methods of trying to scare the humans away. It turned orange, bigger, tinier. Eventually the pumpkin realized it had to appear human to not be taken.
It adapted itself into another form. A form of a white bearded human in red and white clothing with a plump stomach.
Every Halloween, the pumpkin would switch between the pumpkins it could inhabit and watch the children in pumpkin form. It would create a list of the children who were naughty or nice.
Then on December 25th, the pumpkin, in its white-bearded human form, would give the children presents based on the list.
Over the years, Santa Claus turned into a legend completely separate from Halloween. Millions of people every year tried to figure out how Santa watched them, but they never found the connection between the pumpkins, the white-bearded human, and…Her.
